The Blue Taxi

August 7, 2006
When a young boy loses a leg after being hit by a drunk driver in his East African town of Vunjamguu, the shockwaves that run through his small community force a Belgian expat housewife to re-evaluate her life. Raised by nuns in a secluded mission hospital, Sarie Turner is lonely and isolated from everyone around her, contemptuous of her social-climbing British husband, Gilbert, and at odds with her snooty British contemporaries. Against Gilbert's wishes, Sarie and her young daughter, Agatha, visit the injured boy as he recovers, and Sarie becomes infatuated with the boy's handsome, anguished widower father, Majid Jeevanjee. Sarie seduces Majid; as their affair becomes a respite from her unfulfilling marriage, her feelings toward her husband and the coterie of high-class expats change in unexpected ways. The world Köenings has created in her accomplished debut is tragic and exhilarating, as is her portrayal of weary, left-behind colonialists, poverty-stricken natives and the uneasy manner in which each regards the other.

August 15, 2006
In Kö enings's mesmerizing debut novel, a traffic accident propels an unhappy housewife and a grieving widower into each other's lives. On the streets of Vunjamguu, East Africa, a bus crash robs a young Indian boy of his leg and leads Sarie Turner, a witness, to a relationship with the boy's father. As the news of their affair spreads through the neighborhood (completely bypassing Sarie's bookish, oblivious husband), the townspeople react by questioning their own destinies. Kö enings anchors her characters' near-constant internal monologs with elegant, concrete details about their everyday lives; the result is a city teeming with both external bustle and interior world building, as Sarie, her husband, and her lover imagine new paths for themselves. When these visions collide, whose will prevail? Readers who enjoy psychological fiction will be impressed by Kö enings's ability to flesh out the inner landscapes of Vunjamguu's diverse citizenry, while those concerned with style will appreciate the clear, graceful sentences that simplify the navigation of these multiple realities. Recommended for most fiction collections." -Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2006
Sarie and her daughter see a young Indian boy hit by a bus: so begins this tale of families and dreams set in East Africa during the 1970s. A Belgian woman raised by nuns, Sarie wants to inquire after the boy, so she tracks down his family's address, and before long she and her daughter are spending afternoons with the Jeevanjees. Majhid, a failed businessman and widower, could not be more surprised by the presence of big-boned and charmingly absentminded Sarie, and soon they are entangled in an affair. Meanwhile, Sarie's husband, the bookish, dull Gilbert, finds that his dear uncle is cutting him off. Unless Gilbert comes up with a legitimate business, his uncle won't send another cent. Fueled into action, Gilbert enlists his wife's help, and their schemes take confusing turns. Koenings' debut is lush and charismatic yet lacks verve as it slowly plods along, offering an intriguing but lackluster retrospective view of life among expats and East Africans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)